Beit El Kroum : a diamond in the roughDate: Saturday, August 24, 2013 By: Lysandra Ohrstrom Source: The Daily StarZAHLE, Lebanon: Near the end of a summer tourism season marred by periodic bomb blasts, kidnappings and outbreaks of violence, a visit to the new boutique hotel Beit El Kroum in the Bekaa Valley confounds expectations.

I made the one-hour trip from Beirut to Zahle last Saturday, expecting to have the 8-month-old hotel more or less to myself. At the very least, I planned to wrangle a free room upgrade.I was greeted by a group of perfectly tanned, bikini clad 20-somethings lounging around a mountaintop infinity pool overlooking the red roofs of Zahle. Though it was the peak of the afternoon heat, refreshing gusts of dry wind kept the sunbathers and the grassy backyard cool as the temperature reached levels that would be positively oppressive in Beirut.

Shockingly, when I asked to be moved from a $130 room to one with a view a…